Flautas Gemeinhardt

Gemeinhardt Flutes

Gemeinhardt manufactures woodwinds for use throughout the world, including the Gemeinhardt flutes. Fourth-generation woodwind maker Kurt Gemeinhardt founded the Gemeinhardt Company in Elkhart, Indiana in 1948. In 2011, the company was purchased by Angel Industries, which is headquartered in Taiwan.

Gemeinhardt sells flutes in several different categories, including:

• C flutes: C flutes are the flutes often heard in Western classical music. Players create notes by blowing a stream of air through the instrument’s embouchure hole. They vary the pitch of their notes by opening and closing 16 tone holes along the length of the body. This range is typically from middle C to C7, but some modified instruments are able to reach higher registers. Gemeinhardt manufactures most of its C flutes out of a nickel-silver alloy that’s plated with silver.
• Alto flutes: Gemeinhardt alto flutes have a key range from G3 to G6 with an altissimo register. Alto flutes can be manufactured with straight head joints or with curved head joints.
• Piccolos: A piccolo is a half-sized C flute that uses the same fingering as the larger instrument, but a piccolo produces a sound that’s an octave higher than the score it’s following. Gemeinhardt piccolos are also made of nickel-silver alloy. The company also sells a line of grenadilla wood piccolos under the Roy Seaman brand name.
• Bass flutes: Bass flutes are pitched one octave lower than the C flute. Because it’s such a long instrument, this woodwind typically features a J-shaped head joint.

The components used to make most Gemeinhardt models are manufactured in factories across the United States, China, and Taiwan. Gemeinhardt piccolos, however, are manufactured and assembled entirely in the U.S.

Components such as head joints, foot joints, bodies, and keys are manufactured at Gemeinhardt’s factory in Elkhart. These components are then sent to Angel Industries, which assembles the completed instruments in Taiwan and China. This is why the barrel of a Gemeinhardt flute may be marked “USA” while its body may be marked “China.” Assembled models are then transported back to Indiana where quality testing is done before the instruments are sold.

The Gemeinhardt 2SP flute is a student flute used across the U.S. Nearly 50,000 of these Gemeinhardt instruments are sold every year, and more than one million have been purchased since the model was first introduced in 1981. These student flutes are lighter in weight than other models, and when a part wears out or is damaged, the component can be replaced.

This woodwind is manufactured from a nickel-silver alloy covered by silver plating. It features a straight head joint, which creates a long space between its plateau keys and its embouchure hole. Plateau model flutes, which are sometimes called closed hole flutes, don’t have venting holes in the center of the keys.